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From: alan@pdn.UUCP (Alan Lovejoy)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Success of AI
Message-ID: <1642@pdn.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Oct-87 17:08:27 EST
Article-I.D.: pdn.1642
Posted: Sat Oct 24 17:08:27 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Oct-87 01:25:49 EST
References: <193@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <1993@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Reply-To: alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy)
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Lines: 33

In article <1993@gryphon.CTS.COM> tsmith@gryphon.CTS.COM (Tim Smith) writes:
/In article <193@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> spe@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Sean Engelson) writes:
/+=====
/| Given a sufficiently powerful computer, I could, in theory, simulate
/| the human body and brain to any desired degree of accuracy.  This

/You might, for example, claim that with a
/very large number of computers, all just at the edge of the
/speed boundaries dictated by the laws of physics in the most
/advanced materials imaginable, you could simulate a human body
/and mind--but not in real time. But the simulation would have to
/be in real time, because humans live in real time, doing things
/that are critically time dependent (perceiving speech, for
/example).

You make the invalid assumption that "simulation" means that those of
us in the real universe can not distinguish the simulated object or 
process from the real thing.  It is just as valid to deal with
simulations that enable one to make accurate predictions about what
would happen in the real world in some well-specified scenario, even
if the simulation doesn't look anything like what is simulates in the
physical sense.  What matters is the logical equivalence or similarity
in an abstract reality.

/Similarly, humans think the way they do partially because of
/their size, because of the environment they live in, because of
/the speed at which they move, live, and think.

If the environment of an object is simulated in addition to the object
itself, one need merely synchronize the object with the simulated
environment as to speed, size, etc.

--alan@pdn